Missional in the Suburbs: Part 4 - Church Facilities, Land, and Sacred Space

These recent days have been extremely hectic ones for those of us at our church. We are in the process of moving to a new worship location after our first three years in our present site. This is partly the reason for the time gap in blogging . . . for that, please accept my apologies. It is not my norm. That being said, this worship location move has led to the topic of this blog. Before undertaking my thoughts (which may prove a bit lengthy but, I have not written in a few days) on being missional in the suburbs as it relates to facilities, I have to share what has taken place in the church where I am privileged to serve as pastor.

Fountain Park is a new faith community. I am not the original founding pastor. The original pastor announced his resignation to pursue other ministry six months after the official launch. I arrived here shortly after their first anniversary. The history of my former church (the “mother church” of Fountain Park) and my present church is that both were operated under an attractional model of ministry. I began to have serious questions about that model several years ago and by the time I arrived here had moved almost entirely to a missional model as more apostolic and thereby Biblical. During my entire time here I have been attempting to lead the leaders and congregation into an understanding of what missional ministry actually is. We have discussed, read, studied and attended conferences. Ten leaders attended an all day missional church workshop with Frost and Hirsch. All of this has taken place as we held weekly worship gatherings and attempted to reach out to our community in our present worship location.

Let me tell you about that location. We are located in one of, if not the fastest growing sectors in the state of Pennsylvania. The cost of living here is very high for this part of the country. For a traditional “build it and they will come church,” facilities could eat up a ton of your resources. (Consider $500,000 to $1 million per acre as not out of the realm of possibility on the main corridor.) However, there is a need for a place to gather for worship. And all we have here is new construction and empty farm land. The idea at first was to meet and worship in a rented school facility. The original core group meetings did meet in a school. That did not pan out for official launch for various reasons, so Fountain Park began to use an office building for worship. We actually have a very cool office space modified for worship, but in this corridor it is likewise very expensive. In order to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us, we felt we must seek an alternate location. That location has been secured. It is a closed down Episcopal Church that we are able to renovate.

Here is where it really gets interesting in this missional discussion. The ink is not even dry on this paperwork and I have had to take numerous precautions to stop folks from calling this new building “the church.” (We are calling it simply our Worship Center.) Many even called the office rental “the church.” I wanted to take the bridge!

Why is this I asked myself? In reality, I do not blame anyone. There are numerous reasons, but here is a key one: Past experiences die hard. For even the “unchurched” the idea that the building was a church is deeply ingrained. It is something that is far more entrenched into the culture of this region than we care to admit. This is especially true in an area where the Roman Catholic Church claims as much as 1/3 of the church attendees in the area. (I have no axe to grind here, it is just a reality in my culture. Was it Kevin Crawley on his blog who said, being missional is exegeting the culture?) A much as I say I am reaching the unchurched I think in reality de-churched is probably a better term here. These “de-churched” folks as well as churched folks, who choose to be a part of us, all bring their former church to our location. It is hard to remind them that we are not recreating their former church, no matter what it was like.

Before this facility came into being in our life, I was asking this question over a cup of coffee with another missional pastor friend here. “Is it even possible to do missional ministry in the suburbs without a facility?” I am increasingly beginning to think the answer to that question is “no.” When reaching the 2.3 kid families, the suburban single parent and the empty nester here, it quite simply may take a “place.” It may not, but for us it may. There seems to be deep within the heart of the suburbanites in the US a deep longing for “sacred space.” Their lives are so incredibly busy that they are dying for some respite. That is why they have the country home, or the lake home, or the beach home, or just go camping. They are dying for a break from the rat race they have allowed themselves to fall into. (I will resist the urge to argue about the “hurried child” or the “living out daddy or mommy’s dream” syndrome here. But I will pick that topic up in the future!) Many have forgotten that the “up and outer” need Jesus just as much as the “down and outer.” And if we can help these get a vision for the poor and oppressed what kind of impact could we expect?

But what kind of a sacred space does it take? Do we really need a mammoth cathedral? Not that it is wrong, but do we need it? I am so much “less is more” when it comes to facilities and buildings. I see the needs in Africa and up the street from my home and I say “Should our money not go there?” But in reality, doing much of the outreach sort of stuff (read “missional” here) that is required in a suburban setting requires a place to do it. That means a building of some sort or another.

This has gone on far too long, but here is what I envision for Fountain Park in the future. We would like the present facility we are acquiring to become a youth outreach facility while we build a worship location somewhere else, a couple miles away. I then see us owning some land to build ball fields that are loaned to the community at no charge for their sports activities. We do not have a campus in one location; instead we have a presence in the entire community that is offering something. Some of this offering is similar to the church of modernity. (Let’s not throw the baby out with the dirty bath water.) We intend to allow community groups, support groups, etc. all over the facilities. Why not support AA, NA, Al Anon, Alateen and Jazzercise as we seek new ways to connect in and with our community? Could this not become an element of being missional that reaches men and women where they are? Could this allow our worship location to become a third place for some folks? Is this wrong if it can lead others to Jesus? Is this not a missional expression of the suburban church? At present, I am having a hard time answering that question with anything other than an affirmative answer.